Free Embedded by Dan Abnett Page B

intend to do business with," said Apfel, "you might as well get the fuck out of Dodge."
      "So who's not playing nice here?"
      "The United Status has got itself into a pickle on EightySix," Apfel replied. "They're messing with the Bloc. Things have gone hot for the first time ever."
      "This is over Fred?"
      "It's over Fred and all sorts of other shit. We don't even know the half of it, but it all seems to be resource-based. Strategic Significance Orders. Mineral lodes. Comes, quite literally, with the territory. Because the US and the Bloc are going at it, the SO is sucked in."
      "But not GEO?"
      "When GEO first came to Eighty-Six and started to invest, it played it very safe and smart. Standard operating practice. GEO's got strong US ties, I won't pretend otherwise, but it's not an exclusive relationship. It built itself up so that no matter who came out on top here, no matter who ended up holding the reins, GEO was in place, with the right infrastructure, ready to benefit."
      Apfel looked at Falk. They had reached a large, grubby loading dock at the side of the shed, where concrete steps led down to a closed shutter. A silt of dead leaves had gathered in the step well.
      "Are you getting the picture?" Apfel asked.
      "The Settlement Office is enforcing a media blackout on the dispute between the Bloc and the US, and as a consequence GEO is soaking up hits because it appears to be the aggressor?"
      "Pretty much."
      "So how would you change that? If you'd been employed on a woolly contract to rescue GEO's corporate reputation, I mean."
      "You tell the truth and shame the devil," said Apfel.
      "Meaning?"
      "You get more of the real story out there, into circulation, so that people start to get a more realistic picture of GEO's involvement. Re-information, Falk."
      "And how does that work?" Falk asked.
      Apfel bent down and got hold of the handle at the bottom of the battered shutter. He stood up again, clattering the shutter up and away into its over-door drum. Daylight streamed in on them.
      "You find yourself some high-quality correspondents," he said, "and you embed them in the warzone."
     
 

EIGHT
     
 
    "The SO won't wear that," said Falk. "I mean, they flat-out won't."
      "I know," said Apfel.
      "Then you can't do it. You can't do it without their full cooperation."
      "Turns out he can," said Cleesh.
      They walked out into the open air across a weed-choked patch of ground in the lea of the museum shed. Blurds buzzed by. Falk felt microbugs alighting on his skin, and wished he'd bothered to top up his spray. It was an occupational regime that hadn't quite become second nature yet.
      A cinder path had been laid across the tract of scrub and, beyond it, an object had been put on display under a stand of tall, straight, ivory trees that were either dead or leafless. The object was about the size of a detached house, and it was reclining, three-quarter length, on a patch of pink gravel. Weeds had invaded the path, the gravel plot and the cavities of the dented, battered metal. Lichen had begun to coat the underside where the sunlight was never direct.
      "The original surveyor probe," said Apfel, "launched from a Settlement Advance driver. First man-made object to touch Eighty-Six. They dug it out of an endorheic basin a thousand miles east of Marblehead. Buried there, sending back informatics that changed this world."
      "Oh, it's so symbolic, I may have to kill myself," said Falk.
      "You think I'm that cheesy?" asked Apfel, amused.
      "You are that cheesy," said Cleesh.
      "I am, but still," said Apfel. "We were only coming this way to reach the truck."
      They followed the path around the mangled lump of the probe and past the trees, and the truck came into view. It was a medium cargo roller, pale blue, no insignia, parked on the rough slip of the park's slope. Coming out of the museum via the loading dock, the probe had kept it hidden from